Some headlines from today:
- The great resignation is changing work in America, and experts say it's here to stay
- 5 trends to shake the world in 2022: Predictions for the year ahead
- No new Covid rules in England before new year - Javid
- Dalian Atkinson: Police apologise for killing black ex-footballer
- Donald Trump golf resorts claimed at least £3.3m in UK furlough support
- Brexit: ‘the biggest disaster any government has ever negotiated’
- Delegates at new round of Iran nuclear talks strike hopeful note
- South Africa begins a week of mourning for Desmond Tutu
- Thousands of Russian troops leave Ukraine border
- Coronavirus digest: Australia's New South Wales sees first omicron death
- Why rapid COVID tests are in short supply in the U.S.
- A judge will reconsider a trucker's 110-year sentence following a public outcry
This is an open thread where everyone is welcome, especially night owls and early birds, to share and discuss the happenings of the day. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
C/NET
Historically low unemployment claims, historically high quit rates, millions of baby boomers suddenly retiring. All of it is remaking work in America.
Like so many other people, Josh Feldman found his work life changing when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Isolation at home with family became the norm, even while he continued working at the job he loved as the vice president of leadership and student experiences at Hillel International, a Jewish nonprofit organization.
He adjusted for a while, just as millions of others did. But eventually, the change unexpectedly forced him to confront just how burned out he was.
C/NET
Even before the momentous events of 2020 and 2021 shook up the planet, the tectonic plates of culture, society and technology were already shifting and reshaping the world. The pandemic took those changes and accelerated them, exacerbated them, and in some cases, threw them into chaos.
As we speed into 2022, one question remains: where are we headed next?
In tech, health, money, transportation, home and family life, we can be confident of one fact: things are changing, fast. As in years past, CNET has its finger on the pulse of the ever evolving world and we're confident our CNET: The Year Ahead stories will help you navigate these choppy waters.
During this three-week series -- which will include CES -- we'll especially tackle five themes that will shape 2022:
BBC
There will be no further Covid restrictions in England before the new year, Sajid Javid has said.
But the health secretary said people should "remain cautious" and celebrate outside on New Year's Eve if possible.
Meanwhile, both England and Scotland have reported record case numbers over the Christmas period.
The figures showed there were 113,628 new infections reported in England on 25 December, 103,558 on 26 December and 98,515 on 27 December.
Meanwhile provisional data for Scotland said it saw 8,252 cases on Christmas Day, 11,030 cases on Boxing Day and Monday's total was 10,562.
Only partial Covid data for the UK has been published over the Christmas period, and full figures will be published later this month.
BBC
Police have sent a written apology to the family of ex-footballer Dalian Atkinson, six months after an officer who Tasered him and kicked him in the head was jailed for manslaughter.
West Mercia's Chief Constable Pippa Mills said she was "deeply sorry".
"A police uniform does not grant officers immunity to behave unlawfully or to abuse their powers," she wrote.
PC Benjamin Monk's conviction was the first for a death in custody in 30 years.
The family of Mr Atkinson, a former Premier League star with Aston Villa, had said the case showed the need for change in the way black people were treated by police and the criminal justice system, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Ms Mills only took over as chief constable of West Mercia Police in September, three months after the legal proceedings ended.
The Guardian
Donald Trump’s loss-making Scottish golf resorts claimed in excess of £3.3m in emergency support from the UK government, to help furlough staff during the Covid pandemic.
Company accounts for the former president’s resorts at Turnberry in Ayrshire and Balmedie, north of Aberdeen, show his businesses cut 273 jobs due to the Covid crisis last year, while also claiming £2.8m in furlough support.
Other government data shows Trump Turnberry and Trump International Scotland in Aberdeenshire then made further claims this year while the UK government’s job retention scheme was still in force.
The BBC reported those claims, not yet included in the Trump companies’ accounts, were worth between £520,000 and £1.3m, leading to a total claim for furlough funding of between £3.3m and £4.1m overall.
BBC
A British cheesemaker who predicted Brexit would cost him hundreds of thousands of pounds in exports has called the UK’s departure from the EU single market a disaster, after losing his entire wholesale and retail business in the bloc over the past year. Simon Spurrell, the co-founder of the Cheshire Cheese Company, said personal advice from a government minister to pursue non-EU markets to compensate for his losses had proved to be “an expensive joke”.
“It turns out our greatest competitor on the planet is the UK government because every time they do a fantastic deal, they kick us out of that market – starting with the Brexit deal,” he said.
Al Jazeera
Tehran, Iran – The eighth and possibly final round of talks in Vienna to restore Iran’s landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers has commenced on a cautiously hopeful note.
A Joint Commission meeting of the remaining participants of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the nuclear deal is formally known, concluded on Monday night in the Austrian capital, with a slew of bilateral and trilateral meetings between the different delegations.
There was, however, no direct meeting between Iranian and United States’ representatives as Tehran refuses to talk directly with Washington after the US in 2018 unilaterally abandoned the accord.
Following the main meeting at the Palais Coburg, Iran’s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani said the delegations agreed that “good progress” was made during the seventh round that ended 10 days earlier, and there is now a “suitable framework” to take the talks forward.
Al Jazeera
South Africa has started a week of mourning to honour anti-apartheid icon and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, who died in a Cape Town nursing home on Sunday at age 90.
Bells rang at midday on Monday from the city’s St George’s Anglican Cathedral, where the Nobel laureate had urged South Africans of all races to work together against apartheid. They will toll for 10 minutes at noon for five days.
“We ask all who hear the bells to pause their busy schedules for a moment in tribute to Archbishop Tutu,” said the current Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba.
Meanwhile, people laid flowers at the Cathedral, in front of Tutu’s home in Cape Town’s Milnerton area, and in front of his former home in Soweto, Johannesburg.
Cape Town’s City Hall, Arch for Arch – a monument commemorating Tutu – and the iconic Table Mountain were also illuminated in purple, a nod to the trademark purple clerical shirt the Anglican priest often wore with a white tab collar.
DW News
Russia announced on Saturday that 10,000 troops had finished month-long military drills near Ukraine and would be returning to their permanent bases.
The news comes amid accusations from Western countries that Russia is plotting an invasion of Ukraine, something the Kremlin denies.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that the operations for the Southern Military District forces had taken place across a stream of southern regions, including Rostov, Krasnodar and Crimea, a peninsula Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
The West has accused Russia of amassing some 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine.
DW News
In Australia, the most populous state of New South Wales has confirmed the country's first deathfrom the omicron variant of the coronavirus on Monday.
The death was of a man in his 80s who contracted the virus at a care home in western Sydney. He was fully inoculated but had other health issues.
On Monday, the state saw 6,324 new cases of COVID-19 infection, a dip from the record number of cases a day before.
Fresh restrictions went into force in New South Wales on Monday, including a cap of one person per 2 square meters (about 21 square feet) in bars and restaurants and mandatory "check-ins" with QR codes in all hospitality venues.
NPR
For many Americans, the hunt for an at-home COVID test can be frustrating right now. In the aftermath of the holidays, drugstore shelves are bare in many places and states that have offered free over-the-counter tests, like Ohio and New Hampshire, ran out within hours.
This situation frustrates Dr. Kavita Patel who wishes navigating the pandemic could work here like it does across much of Europe, where take-home COVID-19 tests are free or virtually free, and so widely available that people can use them every day — before going to work, or a party.
"Shouldn't this be so damn easy that there's very little friction to getting a test?," says Patel, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and a practicing physician at a federally-funded health clinic in Washington, DC. "The answer should be: Yes."
NPR
GOLDEN, Colo. — A truck driver sentenced to 110 years for an explosive crash that killed four people in suburban Denver moved a step closer Monday to potentially having his prison term reduced.
Judge Bruce Jones scheduled a hearing for Jan. 13 to reconsider Rogel Aguilera-Mederos' sentence following widespread outrage over the severity of his punishmentand an unusual request by prosecutors to revisit the matter.
During a virtual hearing to discuss the request, one of Aguilera-Mederos' lawyers, James Colgan, said the defense needed some time to do research to see if there were any similar cases that could help guide its approach.
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